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Tuesday, April 5
 Short
notes on Transcendentalism
 Overview
and summary of “The American Scholar”
by Emerson
 Discussion
 Group
 No
questions
discussion
homework
+ Romanticism  Transcendentalism
 Transcendental
movement may be described as a
slightly later, American outgrowth of romanticism.
 Rooted
in Kant’s belief that “all knowledge is
transcendental which is concerned not with objects
but with our mode of knowing objects”
Romanticism  feeling, individual perception
 German idealism and optimism
 Hindu thought

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Emerson’s Definition
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nature (1836)
"Standing on the bare ground,--my head bathed by the
blithe air, and uplifted into infinite space,--all mean egotism
vanishes. I become a transparent eye-ball. I am nothing. I see
all. The currents of the Universal Being circulate through me;
I am part or parcel of God" (996).
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Transcendentalism – 1835ish to 1850ish
 Belief
in an ideal
spiritually that
“transcends” the
physical and is realized
through the individual’s
intuition.
 Search
for truth.
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Transcendental Club

The club was a meeting-place
for these young thinkers and an
organizing ground for their
idealist frustration with the
general state of American
culture and society at the time.

Transcendentalism's “Flowers”
 Utopianism
 Socialism
 Women’s rights
 “free love”
 Abolitionism
 Environmentalism
+ Henry David Thoreau 1817-1862
 Walden, a
reflection upon simple
living in natural surroundings
 Civil
Disobedience, an argument
for individual resistance to civil
government
 "I
ask for, not at once no
government, but at once a better
government”
 “That
government is best which
governs not at all;' and when men
are prepared for it, that will be the
kind of government which they will
have."
+ Ralph Waldo Emerson 1803-1882

Champion of individualism.
 Emerson
wrote on a number of subjects,
developing certain ideas such as
individuality, freedom, the ability for man
to realize almost anything, and the
relationship between the soul and the
surrounding world.
 Philosophy
of Transcendentalism
discussed in his 1836 essay, Nature.
A
year later, on August 31, 1837, Emerson
delivered his now-famous Phi Beta Kappa
address, "The American Scholar”.
+
+ “The American Scholar”
 At
the time, women were barred from higher education,
and scholarship was reserved exclusively for men.
 America's
"Intellectual Declaration of Independence”.
 Emerson
urged Americans to create a writing style all their
own and free from Europe.
A
student at Harvard called it, "an event without former
parallel”.

Another member of the audience, Reverend John Pierce,
called it "an apparently incoherent and unintelligible
address”.
“The
American
Scholar”
1837
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 The
text begins with an introduction (paragraphs 1-6) in
which Emerson explains that his intent is to explore the
scholar as one function of the whole human being: The
scholar is "Man Thinking."
 The
remainder of the essay is organized into four sections:
 The influence of nature (paragraphs 7 and 8)
 The influence of the past and books (paragraphs 9 -18)
 The influence of action on the education of the thinking
man (paragraphs 19-27)
 In the last section (paragraphs 28-41), Emerson considers
the duties of the scholar and then discusses his views of
America in his own time.
+ Number the paragraphs of the essay 1 Page
1 -1 to 6
 Page
2 – 6 to 11
 Page
3 – 11 to 16
 Page
4 – 16 to 21
 Page
5 – 21 to 27
 Page
6 – 27 to 29
 Page
7 – 30 to 33
 Page
8 – 33 to 99
 Page
9 – 40 and 41
41
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Discussion Activity
1.
I will assign you an example of Transcendentalism to
focus on (from the chart handout).
 Find quotes and examples and provide explanations.
2.
After you have finished step 1, answer the questions on the
handout.
3.
Cite examples using page and paragraph #
4.
Turn in one handout per group (make sure all group
member names are on it). Please get into groups of 3 – 4.
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Discussion of “The American
Scholar”
 You
will lead the discussion for your group’s
assigned questions.
 Everyone
should participate in the discussion,
even if it’s not your group’s assigned question.